6.43 Signs.

JurisdictionArizona
A.R.S. § 9-462.01(A)(2) (municipalities have authority to regulate signs)
A.R.S. §§ 9-462.02(B) and 11-812(H) (municipalities and counties are prohibited from requiring, as condition of permit or approval, owner or possessor of property to waive rights to continue nonconforming outdoor advertising signs without acquiring the signs by purchase or condemnation, unless the municipalities and counties allow the signs to be relocated to comparable sites; municipalities and counties are required to pay for relocating the signs; the prohibitions do not apply to rezonings of property at the request of property owner)
A.R.S. § 9-462.02(C) (a municipality must issue a citation and file an action involving a billboard regulation violation within two years after discovering the violation; only superior court has jurisdiction to order removal, abatement, reconfiguration or relocation of a billboard; each day a billboard violation exists shall not be considered a separate offense unless the violation constitutes an immediate threat to the public's health and safety)
A.R.S. § 9-499.13 (municipalities must allow the posting, display and use of "sign walkers"; municipalities may adopt reasonable time, place and manner regulations relating to sign walkers, but may not restrict a sign walker from using a public sidewalk, walkway or pedestrian thoroughfare; sign walker is defined as a person who wears, holds or balances a sign)
A.R.S. § 16-1019 (limitations on municipal and county regulation of political signs in the public right-of-way)
A.R.S. § 28-7901 et seq. (Arizona Highway Beautification Act expressly authorizes cities, towns and counties to control outdoor advertising along interstate, secondary and primary highways, subject to certain conditions)
Reed v. Town of Gilbert, -- U.S. --, 135 S. Ct. 2218, 192 L. Ed. 2d 236 (2015) (Town of Gilbert's ordinance restricting the size, duration, and location of temporary directional signs (which differed from restrictions on ideological signs and political signs) is on its face content-based regulation of speech, subject to strict scrutiny; such restrictions single out subject matter for different treatment even if they do not target viewpoints within subject matter; content-based regulations stand only if they survive strict scrutiny, which requires the Town to prove that the regulations are narrowly tailored to further a compelling interest; the Town's reliance on aesthetic appeal and traffic safety to justify its code's distinctions "fail as hopelessly underinclusive"; a law cannot be regarded as protecting an interest of the highest order and justifying a restriction on truthful speech when it leaves appreciable damage to that supposedly vital interest unprohibited; calls into question all content-based regulations of signs and other speech)
Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U.S. 525, 121 S. Ct. 2404, 150 L. Ed. 2d 532 (2001) (the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1334, preempts state regulations governing outdoor and point-of-sale advertising; Massachusetts' outdoor advertising regulations prohibiting smokeless tobacco and cigars advertising within 1,000 feet of a school or playground violate the First Amendment)
City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 114 S. Ct. 2038, 129 L. Ed. 2d 36 (1994) (ordinance banning residential political signs violated First Amendment; city's interest in minimizing visible clutter was not sufficient to support ban of virtually all residential signs)
City of Columbia v. Omni Outdoor Advertising, 499 U.S. 365, 111 S. Ct. 1344, 113 L. Ed. 2d 382 (1991) (municipality authorized by state law to enact zoning ordinances regulating billboards is immune from antitrust liability under state action doctrine)
City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 104 S. Ct. 2118, 80 L. Ed. 2d 772 (1984) (upheld municipal ordinance banning all signs on public property)
Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 101 S. Ct. 2882, 69 L. Ed. 2d 800 (1981) (traffic safety and aesthetics are substantial governmental interests; commercial speech cannot be given preference over noncommercial speech, and some types of noncommercial speech cannot be given preference over other types of noncommercial speech)
Contest Promotions, LLC, v. City and County of San Francisco, 874 F.3d 597 (9th Cir. 2017) (regulations distinguishing general advertising signs (referring to offsite activities) from business signs (referring to activities undertaken on the same premises as the sign) and exempt noncommercial signs survived intermediate scrutiny because they directly advanced the government's substantial interests)
Lone Star Security and Video, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, 827 F.3d 1192 (9th Cir. 2016) (upheld municipal ordinances regulating mobile billboards)
Charles v. City of Los Angeles, 697 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2012), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 2339 (2013) (a temporary offsite sign advertising a television program that involved constitutionally protected speech was properly characterized by city officials as strictly commercial in nature and, thus, not within an exemption in the sign code for noncommercial speech; where the facts present a close question, strong support that the speech should be characterized as commercial speech is found where the speech is an advertisement, the speech refers to a particular product, and the speaker has an economic motivation; the core notion of commercial speech is that it does no more than propose a commercial transaction)
Vanguard Outdoor, LLC v. City of Los Angeles, 648 F.3d 737 (9th Cir. 2011) (in denying application for preliminary injunction, district court held that the city is entitled to treat nonconforming billboards differently than other billboards because preserving legally nonconforming billboards furthers the city's significant interest in reducing blight and increasing traffic safety even if all billboards are not eliminated and because the city may have to pay the owners to take legal nonconforming billboards down; plaintiff failed to demonstrate that allowing ten exceptions to a ban on offsite signs in a city with thousands of billboards breaks the link between the ban and the city's objectives in traffic safety and aesthetics; plaintiff
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